Temporary drivers waved to striking transportation workers as they reported to work at the Atlantic Express bus depot in the Charleston section of Staten Island in January.

In a possible break in a month-long school bus strike, union leaders who represent more than 8,000 striking New York City school bus workers were in talks Friday to discuss the “direction this strike will take,” the local union president said.

The talks came after a promise from Democratic mayoral candidates — many of whom supported the union over the Bloomberg administration and bus companies — to “revisit the school bus transportation system and contracts” if and when one of them wins office this year.

Officials at the international union reached out to the candidates as part of an effort to pressure the local union to end the strike, a personal familiar with the matter said.

The candidates – Christine Quinn, Bill de Blasio, Bill Thompson, John Liu and Sal Albanese – asked the drivers and matrons to return to work in a letter first reported early Friday by NY1. The candidates said they would individually work on the issues of pay and job protections if they won.

“It gives us great confidence that the next mayor of this city will be far more sympathetic to the working conditions of the drivers, matrons and mechanics that make up Local 1181,” said Michael Cordiello, president of the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1181.

The union’s executive board could decide to call off the strike without a vote from all members.

The Department of Education and the mayor’s office declined to provide an immediate comment.

In the four weeks since the workers went on strike, thousands of students have been left stranded and the city has scrambled to try to arrange alternate transportation for students. Still, Schools Chancellor Dennis Walcott was steadfast in saying it was not his place to get involved in what the city viewed as a dispute between bus workers and the multiple bus companies that serve the roughly 7,700 bus routes.

The new contracts for the routes wouldn’t include requirements that bus companies hire the most senior employees from across the entire city.

Meanwhile, the city has marched toward awarding new contracts without employee protections. In December, the city put about 1/7th of its bus routes out to bid for the first time in 33 years, sparking the strike.

There was a flood of interest in the new contracts, with more than 60 companies submitting bids for at least one of the route packages.

It’s unclear how much the city could save, because many low bids could be thrown out. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said in his State of the City speech Thursday the city was looking at hundreds of millions of savings, likely referring to a total over the total five-year contract. The mayor called the union’s strike a “lost cause.”